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Driver Update Can Cause Vista Deactivation
KrispySausage writes "After weeks of grueling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour."
Fool me once...shame on you......fool me twice.....shame on me. If you use vista and it bites you in the ass....well.... you deserve it.
I had to reactivate my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate after updating an NVIDIA network controller driver via Windows Update. Not a huge pain, but it simply shouldn't happen. Ever.
Wonders never cease.
...to a question that was never asked: Don't say we didn't warn you.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Is there a decent pirated version of Vista yet? I usually use the pirated version of software, even if I have paid for it. Everything works better that way... games don't need disks inserted, XP doesn't need activation or WGA, etc. The pirates have a better product.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What other industry is there that abuses their customers like this? I feel like I'm being accused of criminal activity from the first second I install a MS product now.
Jay | http://oldos.org
Windows for good. I had bought a retail copy of XP(not cheap!) and installed it on my laptop. However, a bug with XP caused it to crash before I could activate it(hell, before I even knew I had to) and managed to reset the clock to 1980. Usually this would just be a minor annoyance, but it turns out that if you monkey with the clock before you activate XP(and maybe even after, I don't know), they assume you are trying to pirate it and refuse to let you do anything. So after I plunked down $200 for the thing, I had to go call their number(and this was overseas, so there were some language issues to boot) and take a half hour out of my day to prove to them I didn't steal the thing I just bought. It was at that point I realized there are other OSs out there, and I have been Windows free for 4 years and couldn't be happier.
This problem is hardly unique to Vista, and is just going to drive more and more people away from Microsoft. Microsoft still acts like they are the only game in town. They just refuse to accept that the competition has improved significantly from the time XP was released....
Monstar L
Hmm, I can get Vista and have less control over my own system, half (or more) of my software won't work with it, and it has all that annoying eye-candy crap from the Mac that I hate....sounds awesome!
XP ain't broke, so don't try to fix it, M$!!!
"Your mouse moved, click here to re-register Windows Zenith. Make sure you have your birth certificate and blood sample ready. Or click cancel to go into RTFM"
This wouldn't happen on a Mac. 'Cos in most of them you can't even get in there to change the graphics card.
-1 not first post
If Vista had actually done all of the things it promised, and didn't do any bullshit like this then it might actually be a decent operating system. Microsoft's viability might have actually been there.
Main differences being vs Linux/Apple is that Apple is a hardware company and could care less if a small fraction of their user base pirates an operating system as long as they are buying hardware and are spreading the good word, and linux makers... want either support contracts or nothing.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Linux will never do this. Ever. Period.
Hey Microsoft, please keep this going. All the free publicity you are providing Linux and Apple is greatly appreciated.
Ok, I give up, why you?
our support team has attempted to replicate this issue in both arch and xubuntu with no success. our support team requires more information before we will be able to resolve your problem.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
No, seriously folks, at some point these stories about Vista have to lead to a stampede away from the product. Just watch for the signs....like the one above.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days)
I don't know about anyone else, but if my OS stopped working after three days I'd definitely notice.
Developers: We can use your help.
Just wondering if this is all part of some brilliant and devious plan.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Good reason to use open-source software. Or at least software from a company that doesn't treat it's customers as criminals by default.
But hey, it's your money, your PC, your loss.
on the upside, it means no-one can steal your computer and get much use out of it. But seriously, it's not enough that the freaking os will change your locks if you leave your house, but to have it do this? and the Microsoft executives wonder why people use mac.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
I installed the latest corporate demanded software and then acrobat started requesting "activation" every few hours. Adobe sent me a patch, but I am still testing it. (Not the reader, this is full blown Adobe Acrobat 8.x professional)
Good reason to switch to another OS and get used to it, before they pull the plug on XP and force you to use Vista!
Fixed that for you!
09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63
...this minor inconvenience is clearly offset by the massive benefits inherent in a new GUI skin.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
For those that haven't yet seen the reason why changing hardware hoses your Vista and are interested in the details, I highly recommend this:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
It's all about the DRM.
Skip Franklin
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. -- despair.com
When MSFT was touting the The Total Cost of Ownership studies, did anyone ask, if the costs included reacting to unwanted updates? How many times people have spoken about vendor lock and the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket? Trashed everyone as MSFT hate-mongers. It will only get worse. If the revenue stream is threatened MSFT will slip in another forced update make it more and more difficult to switch to alternatives. Because, get this, MSFT can charge you all the way up to your switching costs. The only way it can increase revenue is by increasing your switching cost.
Put yourself in MSFT's shoes and imagine what you would do. A security issue crops up. One team comes back with a solution that does not break all the competitors products. The other team comes up with a solution that incidentally breaks competitors products. Which one will you pick as "critical security update"? MSFT is doing exactly what it should rationally do, given its market share. It is the customers who are irrationally picking MSFT solutions against their own best interests.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Maybe too little sleep, but did anyone else read the title as "Driver Update Can Cause Virus Deactivation"?
oh well... close enough.
"reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour."
For a percentage of the users being able to use the web browser for half an hour is all they want and need. Not being able to run spyware/malware for that half hour might make this "Desired functionality" mode.
FTA:
"APC has passed all this feedback back to Microsoft, which, to its credit, is taking the situation very seriously and has Vista developers working on a solution."
So it's a bug. A shitty bug, but a bug none-the-less, so all you Vista users can all calm down ok? Wait...
throw new NoSignatureException();
My (preinstalled) copy of Vista never gave me three days' notice before reducing my laptop's functionality (losing the USB mouse). Was that three days thing an added feature of the retail copy?
Yes, I had planned to flee to LinuxMint anyway, but still ...
doc
Isn't it?
Deleted
"What other industry is there that abuses their customers like this?"
Been on a commercial airliner lately? How about 8 hours on the tarmac without airconditioning strapped into a seat that's 2" too narrow with 300-lb companions on either side of you and crying toddlers behind and in front of you. Vista won't seem so bad after you get off that plane.
How about Tobacco? They don't abuse their customers, they just cripple and then kill them.
Meat packing? Widespread E-coli outbreaks. At least Vista doesn't give you gut-wrenching bloody diarrhea (although I hear MS Reasarch is working toward this goal).
I often wonder how and when Microsoft will lose their stranglehold on the PC market. Because, as Tyler would say, "on a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone is zero." No, I don't think anti-piracy strategies like this signal the end of Microsoft but they certainly aren't winning friends with it either.
It only takes a few key missteps and a to shift the market and open the door for a competitor.
5 bucks says that china and microsoft will control most of the world in 20 years. wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that all government machines using vista suddenly shut down when china invades.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
Another reason why companies aren't rushing to switch to Vista. XP works fine, there's really no benefit for going to Vista.
I think this is one of the best features MS has put into it's software yet!
i can't think of anything they might do that could top this.
Wasn't this an advertised feature of the OS back before its release? Either that, or it was an EFF warning.
Sure I've heard it somewhere, though.
ilovegeorgebush
From what I've heard, Mac OS doesn't do this kind of stuff either. It's a little different, since it requires specific apple hardware to run the OS, but there's nothing stopping you from running out and getting a pirated copy of Leopard once it gets released, and running that on your older Mac. I understand how stopping pirates is a good thing, but it should never be done at the expense of your paying customers.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
- Bill
"It has all of the functionality of XP, Linux, and OS X, plus a much, much, much more resource usage".
There, fixed it for ya
ATH++
Or at least is seems like that some times.
At work, I have a laptop (ThinkPad T60) that dual-boots Ubuntu and Vista. Vista is on there only as a way to force myself to get used to it, as I have to support it. Early after Vista's release, an update _from Microsoft_ caused it to be deactivated, had to call MS. (This was later an acknowledged bug that they patched.)
More recently, I used Ghost to go from a 120GB drive down to an 80GB. This too knocked out the activation and the system went into reduced functionality mode. I had to call MS, eventually got someone in India (who I have to admit was very polite and spoke very well.) I had to read off what seemed like a 40 digit code _twice_. Once to the voice-activated system and then again to the person. (No, they apparently couldn't cache this very annoying and labourious bit of data entry.)
I told him why I was having to call and also warned that, as a SysAdmin, I do this kind of thing all of the time and that I was sure I'd be calling again with this exact same Microsoft-imposed problem on this exact same system. I was politely told that this is how the product works and that there was no way around this.
This from an MSDN-issued Vista Business edition. Ugh.
Thankfully, installing Ubuntu on it didn't knock out activation, though I wouldn't put it past MS in the future. If I didn't have to support it at work, I wouldn't touch Vista with a ten foot pole. My hope is that MS eventually tightens the screws enough to push everyone away. So far though, people seem to be much more tolerant of this sort of thing than I would have hoped.
I'm a linux administrator and try to use linux as my desktop. Most of my day is spent in ssh and firefox, with openoffice for docs. However, I still maintain XP on one good computer in my house, cause nero is terrific for burning DVDs. Yes, I know about DeVeDe on Linux, it's OK but not as good.
I bought a fairly powerful computer (AMD64 dual core etc, 4GB RAM) in order to run Vista. To be honest, I was looking for a pirated version of Vista, but after a few months, got discouraged. Now there's some OEM BIOS hack or something, but I haven't tried it. I've worked on a Vista laptop and done support for Window mail connecting to one of my servers, but that's it. And when customers ask me about Vista, I tell them that I don't have a copy running yet. That scares them.
So the point is, if Vista is too hard to pirate, guys like me don't use it. Then the friends/family/clients of guys like me don't use Vista. Thus the current sad state of the Vista market. Seriously, I bet that that there will be some kind of mass VLK/hack leak soon to make it easier to install Vista. And I bet it leaks from someone connected to Redmond.
I've posted about this issue before but was accused of making shit up just to slam Microsoft.
Wrong. I used to be a die-hard Microsoft fan, until they introduced the broken Activation scheme. Even back in the days of Windows XP. driver upgrades or reinstalls could de-activate Windows. This is why I am so adamantly against Activation schemes - at least schemes which do not allow for license transfers. It sucks, too. If delivering a bunch of workstations to a client where the client wants them pre-activated and added to their domain, you have to activate the system. Now, sometimes one will run into incompatibilities and have to upgrade a wireless driver or video driver (or add additional hardware - and yes, I've even seen USB device driver upgrades trigger deactivation) and if you've got the OEM version, guess what? You need to wait on hold with Microsoft to re-activate the system.
Granted, it doesn't happen often. It does have a knack of happening at exactly the wrong time.
Microsoft: you own the market. Drop the activation scheme. Also, where XP is nearing end of life, isn't it time to follow through with your promise to release a patch which will eliminate the need to activate Windows XP? I mean, Vista has been out for nearly a year now. . .
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Just one more reason why I've done the same thing I did to windows millenium. I told all of my non-techie friends that if they buy Vista, they are on their own...
I will dive into your windows xp registry to rip bonzai buddy out, help you with your BeOS install, and sit there recompiling your linux kernel fifteen times for a beer... If you come to me with a Vista machine, I'm just going to send you away with a gutsy gibbon cd to remove the vista infection.
So far, everyone that depends on my help has heeded my advice, and bought machines from vendors offering XP.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode...
Would this be a bad time to mention that Leopard has 300 new features?
Or that you don't even have a serial number to enter, much less activation concerns?
Windows guys, if you are tired of Mac "fanbois" kicking you in the rear stop issuing us steel-toed boots and bending over with a big target taped to your posterior!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're warning you about the fanboy fight that's coming in 3... 2... 1... go! oh, that was ugly... guess you didn't get the warning in time...
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
You did this Pre-Dapper when things weren't ready for prime-time, even admitted by the community. Ubuntu comes with (from the license, and any time you log in) NO WARRANTY.
Stop complaining about this endlessly.
Its getting old.
My Babylon
Microsoft has been doing this for years with XP. Now, it seems the company has taken it to the next level with Vista and make it more annoying. Activation is really just a nuisance, but one that illustrates the relationship MS has with its customer. Namely, everyone is a pirate and must be controlled and customers start to believe it themselves! At my school, I need to rebuild the XP Pro on a school computer but I don't have the media. I call the schools IT department and they told me that Microsoft has told them that too many computers have the same license and are hesitant to give me the media. However, the computer came with Windows XP Pro and has a sticker right on the side. Should it really matter under what license the OS is installed? When a company treats you like a criminal and constricts your productivity with draconian policies, its is time to look for an alternative. Let's hope you are lucky enough to not need Windows.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Windows apologists are always blaming any problems on users not keeping their drivers updated.
I'll be interested to see how they deflect criticism for this problem.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Does anyone expect this trend to get better? Ever? MS continues to wrest control of machines running Windows away from their owners, period. And, as usual, those who run a pirated version will be unaffected by this and the only people who will endure the hassle will be those with legit licenses who play by the rules. Another couple of generations of PC hardware and Trusted Computing modules will shut down most pirates for good, leaving no choice but to run something like Linux in order to retain full control over their machines.
"-or warned you to to have a recovery CD or separate high speed internet connection and CD burner read, because somehow the Ubuntu install/live CD (cause they're they same right? except when you ask for help on the forums) can't fill the role of a recovery CD"
They spent two releases working on the installer as part of making Ubuntu ready for prime time and already fixed that situation, the default installer is now a livecd that functions as a recovery cd. So go away.
Just because you have no commons sense in having a backup when doing something like messing with the MBR of your system isn't their fault. STOP RETREADING TOPICS.
My Babylon
Well... look on the bright side, if you have to run Vista, you can always install cygwin and run Wine to support more of the programs that Vista just does not want to continue to support.... or turn Vista into a large thin client and run them an another Windows box. May not be a pretty solution, but at aleast people have options that does not involve virtualization.
http://wubi-installer.org/
Just try it.
Deleted
My WinXP became "deactivated" after I de-installed the video card driver. This "feature" is hardly limited to Vista, I'm afraid.
Really? When you can get Vista, with or without Aero, to do what Compiz Fusion can, without upgrading my PC, then I'll buy that line. Until then, the "but more" line rings somewhat hollow...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
There's nothing to pirate, it's already free!
Right, because I bought a computer to NOT use its available resources. I want them to sit there idle.
Activation's what drove me away from Microsoft in the first place.
I worked in remote sites, often in areas that were really harsh on computers. Before activation, I used to install my tools (including Office Developer Edition) on a client computer, do the work, then re-image the machine when I left.
I actually had to buy Office XP Developers Edition (for AU$1,500) because of problems when clients upgraded their systems to Office XP. Activation meant I had to buy a laptop to install it on instead of using client computers, and I went through several laptops, each time having to fight to get ODE reinstalled. In the end, I got less than 15 months use out of my $1,500 tool before I gave up and started looking for alternatives.
People who start their own companies don't like having their tools telling them how to run the business.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Well... look on the bright side, if you have to run Vista, you can always install cygwin and run Wine to support more of the programs that Vista just does not want to continue to support.... or turn Vista as large thin client and run those must have software on another Windows box or virtual server instance. May not be a pretty solution, but at aleast people have options.
MSFT is working so hard to stop people from pirating their software ??? WTF. How did MSFT get to be so damned big and financially well off before they stopped the pirates?
It seems to me that the real reason for the problems with Vista are not because MSFT needs to protect their product with DRM, but that they need to protect the **AA's products. MSFT seemed to be doing very well for itself before implementing DRM. How is it that they now need that DRM to stay in business?
This is what worries me. MSFT seems to be looking out for the interests of the **AA, not just themselves. ( putting tinfoil hat on ) If they are looking out for the **AA, you can bet your last dollar that they are also looking out for the interests of Fascist governments. I'm not just trying to bash MSFT, but they are/were the richest and biggest software company in the world BEFORE they decided to install DRM, so what is the point of the DRM? Do you REALLY want to use a product that does that?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The problem with using device drivers as the basis for activation information is that a change in the driver model which has the result of changing the way that the hardware information is reported back to Windows can be enough to register as a physical hardware change.
How could MS not know that would happen? It's like they just got into the computer business last year, but they act like it sometimes.
What a headache for admins. I just can't believe companies take this kind of treatment from a vendor when there are really good alternatives available.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
You know, Microsoft isn't the only one annoying its customers with stupid anti-piracy "solutions." In fact, many companies are worse.
Mastercam requires a "HARDWARE KEY." I'm serious. Which plugs into your friggin' PARALLEL PORT. What if you don't have one!? What if you're using a LAPTOP? Of course, hacking around it is about as difficult as downloading a 1k crack. And what if I lose it or it breaks?
My University has the Education Version of Solidworks. Great software, but our IT department changed around our network a little, and now all the workstations can't connect to the "activation server," which has to be on the same subnet and have its IP hardcoded in. Now the entire campus's machines need to be reinstalled to a new server. Tell me that ain't ANNOYING. And I can tell you the activation server ain't easy to get going. Can you imagine a dozen engineers not being able to do anything over one IP address change?
I upgraded my video card just fine and I have Windows Vista. So I don't really know what everyone is talking about. If it happens in certain situations then its not a huge deal. Sometimes software, even linux, has bugs. Microsoft merely decides to protect its investment with a strong software verification. Big Deal, Linux fan boys cry to much and don't look at things from more then one angle.
It's this horseshit of activation that's kept me off XP, and why I won't even consider Vista (along with bloat, DRM, etc.)
With Win2k, there's one serial number and it works (when I reinstall it.) I can change my entire motherboard, or even system and not have to worry about having to beg and try to convince MS for another number which I shouldn't. They're activation makes ME look like I'm guilty until proven innocent.
Just wait till ReactOS comes out and gives them some compitition. Then I'll be on Debian 4 and ReactOS (VM)
- Kc
Well, as of a few minutes ago, the patch failed. Back to the drawing board. Though in this case, I may take the VPN software off instead of Acrobat. See the VPN software is new and still hasn't been shaken out at our location. Acrobat I need to do my job....
The company I work for runs a Server 2000/2003 environment with lots of instances of XP, MySQL2000i, Quickbooks 2005, etc. on the desktops. In other words for us to upgrade all the desktops, we would have to buy all new hardware and all new software. Simply put: NEVER!!! That is why I still see some manufacturing companies sticking with Windows 98, etc. It costs too much to upgrade...especially if you bought proprietary database software that will never work with new Windows OS's.
I distinctly remember that the saying goes:
"fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Luv,
Bush
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour
And how is this different from regular Vista?
That has to be the most stupid of all. How paranoid and/or greedy do you have to be to think that you're losing PROFIT if a user can only use his/her web browser, exactly!?
I mean, 30 minutes is such a short time that if something would go wrong with the activation, you don't even necessarily have time to diagnose the problem before the browser risk shutting down.
Wow.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Then it's a perfect bet. You only have to pay up if the money is worthless.
Yes, and then again, no. Remember, MS is a convicted monopolist, and has been operating outside the scope of the law in some very disturbing ways for quite a while. Sure, they might be doing so with a nod and a wink from the current not-so-benevolent US administration, but an awful lot of Microsoft activity has been deemed by US (and other) courts to be illegal. And they still do it.
Mind you, I'm not saying that this makes it okay to infringe their copyright. I'm simply pointing out that neither party here quite has the moral high ground. Though in the specific case of the GGP poster, I must ask if anyone lawyerly out there can explain to us if "pirating" a copy of XP after paying for one could possibly count as acquiring a fair-use copy? Thinking it through myself, I'd imagine that the DMCA probably gets in the way. But ethically speaking, this is a grayer area. The GGP poster has already paid MS for their copy of XP, so provided they aren't distributing the cracked copy, it could conceivably be within their ethical, as opposed to legal, rights to get and use an altered copy that doesn't include all the crap- and nag-ware. Hmm...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Exactly. There is no reason why Vista with or without Aero should be as slow as it is. I'm dual booting Vista (came preinstalled) and Mandriva on a laptop with 512 MB RAM, 1.6 GHz Celeron, and Intel GMA 650. Compiz Fusion runs extremely quick and flawlessly. Vista won't even run Aero, and running without Aero is extremely show, so I wouldn't even want to venture into running Aero. There's no reason why adding a 3D desktop should make your machine so much slower, and there's no reason why Vista shouldn't be faster.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
If I stay with Windows, I'll be forced, sooner or later, to get Vista. Unless people wise up and stop taking it in the butt. But I'm not holding out for that, so I am ever more seriously considering.... getting a Macbook. I just noticed they give a cool discount to students (plus an iPod Nano, which isn't bad). I've been using Linux for 10 years already, so I am too aware of the things it can't do for me, yet, but a Mac seems to fit the bill properly.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Toshiba has some laptops that haven't any XP drivers.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. - George Orwell
Really, why should we buy this crap? Boycott hardware to lower OEM licence sales, boycott upgrading, boycott retail and so on. Get your act together. Stop giving them your money. Also, if you are a shareholder, VOTE in every corporate action. I do and every time I vote them off the Board, one day it will happen, I try to do my bit to speed it along :)
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
People are going to learn to cope with this "feature" once XP goes away.
Most likely, everyone will just tape the Vista serial number to the front of the machine... which means that thieves need only look at the front of machines to steal someone else's Vista. Progress!
What was it Benjamin Franklin said about security and freedom? DRM isn't freedom and obviously not safe.
I just bought a laptop with Vista and I need to upgrade it to XP. The one showstopper I'm having is that I can't find graphics drivers for it's NVidia 7150M chipset. Also annoying is the lack of network drivers, but at least I have the Broadcom wireless going so I at least have connectivity for the moment. Any suggestions on where I might find this stuff, ideally links right to it? Yes, I've searched hp.com (it's a Compaq V6620US) and nvidia.com but I just can't find them.
Ironically, everything works perfectly with the Gutsy Gibbon bootable CD. It's only with Windows that I have driver issues.
Luckily I haven't had to use Vista yet, nor from the horror stories do I want to use it. But it is just getting sad when the software companies have to make a sandbox for people and then put a babysitter beside that sends you to bed if you do anything that the babysitter doesn't like. If your toys don't work or play nice in the sand box then they aren't allowed in the sandbox.
RTFA. It took more than that.
What about adding Virtual devices? I use VMWare and a VPN client that add virtual network drivers. I use Daemon Tools that adds a virtual SCSI driver. If I keep using software like this, will I end up having to re-activate Vista somewhere down the line?
Did you miss the part of the article where its clearly stated, he could not reactive it without calling MS support to get a new code? Happened to my wife with XP, what a freeking pain.
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
When I as a customer have to pay for the OS, and then have to put in my own time at $xy per hour to "fix" the OS, when routine actions occur, as described elsewhere.
Top management decisions at MS are loading up their legitimate customers with extra work, lost income and frustration. Frustration is what doomed T-Mobile's relationship with me, and I dumped them in spite of their cancellation fee (reduce my "plan" and they automatically tack on another 2 year minimum period before I could cancel for free - that is the definition of CRAP.).
Not all the frustrations come from DRM. For heaven's sake, Registry glitches and other things that don't or stop working are a pain in XP. My WiFi on XP simply disappeared as an option in the Networking section. That has NEVER happened on my Macs.
If I ever get a chance to run SolidWorks on something other than Windows, I'll be one of the first to jump ship from Microsoft...forever.
I installed a system with a PATA cdrom on a modern ASUS board.. believe it was one of the P5B's.. Got through windows install, didn't bother installing the JMicron PATA driver because it wasn't strictly needed.
Activated XP with no problem.
Went back and put the JMicron driver in, XP came up with a 'must activate' dialog.. had to call it in on the phone to get it activated.
In the interest of science, I repeated the process with another machine I was building, but didn't call it in. Didn't need the machine for about 4-5 months. When I went back to the machine and turned it on months later, it came up with the must activate part, which it was able to do online.. 120 day timeout on activation had expired so I didn't need a phone monkey.
Yet another reason to stick with XP. Like most people here, I constantly upgrade my computer. Every few months I tinker with something or other. Maybe adding some RAM... maybe upgrading the video card ... maybe swapping in an ethernet card just to see if it is functional...
Maybe this article is just FUD, but it still makes me glad that I have 3 or 4 XP install disks sitting around my house.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
technically, we'd be paying in yen.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
Judging by your low UserID, you've been around the block a few times. Has piracy slowed down at all? And has activation been the cause?
Almost every copy protection out there has been cracked, from "Please insert the original floppy disk" to SafeDisc and activation schemes. It's inconvenient to the users who paid for their software, but not to the pirates -- because when they get the software, the copy protection's already removed.
It amuses me that you say matter-of-factly that activation "curbs piracy." Seriously. Do a Google search for "Windows Vista activation crack" -- it's not hard. It's just about as easy for most of the other software out there, too.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It has all of the functionality of XP, Linux, and OS X, plus a bit more.
I seriously doubt that. Maybe XP, but for the other two? No way. Or does it come with several thousand well working application packages?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I am the lead programmer at a small software company. We have struggled for months to get our installer working in Vista. Finally, we think we have it, but it has been a headache for so long.
Now, we just flat-out tell our customers "Don't buy Windows Vista!".
Yeah, our software and installer finally play nice with Vista, but Vista just creates too many headaches for no visible benefits.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
"As for Dell: most people forget that the recovery CDs from Dell/HP/Fujitsu do not contain the crapware that is preinstalled."
Bullshit. As a former HP Laptop technician, when we use a recovery disc, recovery partition, or GHOST/PRISM the image from our servers onto the laptop, you get all the crapware installed. FACTORY CONDITION.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Friggin kernel panic! (had to use a different comp to look at the logs)
FRA: STFU GTFO
is to hack the product YOU BOUGHT so that you can use it properly.
If MS doesn't like it, they can try not selling their software. They have choices.
It's actually fairly easy to circumvent the hardware restrictions on some models of OSX 10.4 discs. See:
http://jonsharp.net/archives/2005/05/06/installing-tiger-on-lombard/
After stupidly losing my OSX install discs once and formatting my Macbook, I purchased a set off Ebay for $20. Unfortunately they were revision 2 discs (Macbook1,2) and my Macbook was a revision 1 model, thus the discs refused to install any software. Ten minutes of twiddling later, I was able to restore my software. It's hard to tell whether Apple is too lazy to implement an ironfisted DRM scheme or they just don't care, in any case these Vista activation nightmare stories make me glad to be a Mac user.
Realistically, if you sell the most used OS in the world do you think that you are going to just trust everyone to properly license their product? A company should be building the trust of its customers. If it can't trust its customers in the first place, it should find a new business. And if you don't think the activation scheme is pain enough now, let's wait a few years and see what happens when people are forced to upgrade because Microsoft stops supporting Vista or handing out activation codes.
that's what I would call it... ;)
Are you asking for bug fixes in a Linux kernel from 6 years ago? Nope, And Linus wouldn't give release them anyway. But I don't hear anyone yelling at about that.....
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
And I've had 0 activation problems. It runs smooth, and I don't want to go back. I also do plenty of development on it and no snags so far. I think most people forget that Vista is a sleeper OS. A good deal of things got updated/improved, but no one will notice them because they are not being used. When you create software on this kind of scale, you can't just make changes. You have to slowly incorporate them to build a supported base and then you introduce the products. Most people on here forget the size of the company and the software. Linux is no comparison because it's all dislocated development. Try taking all the major componenents in any linux distribution, move the developers into 1 location. Now try to run a business off of that.
Anyone else get an image of Jobs kicking Gates into a hole and screaming, "This is usability!!"?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
What is this "reactivation" you speak of when installing memory or a new video card or updating a driver?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
MOD PARENT UP. Quote: "Any substantial commercial XP application that has been around for any significant amount of time will almost certainly run into problems under Vista."
Follow the money. Microsoft apparently wants you to pay, and pay, and pay again. Big commercial software companies will advertise Vista if it is necessary to buy a new version of their software to use with Vista.
Apparently to Microsoft the user is not the customer. Microsoft apparently considers the user just a dog on a leash.
I suppose the constant negative stories about Microsoft make it difficult for Microsoft to hire the really good programmers. If that is true, expect more unfinished products with poor characteristics in the future.
People think that Microsoft is a software company that is routinely abusive. But maybe it isn't. Maybe Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a means of delivering abuse. If you look at it that way, Microsoft is excellent at what it does.
We seem to live in a society dominated by abusers. For another example, Cheney and Bush, who with their friends and family have a long history of oil and weapons investing, are allowed the conflict of interest of deciding to have wars to get control of oil supply. The result is that the value of your money is falling. Rich people who are heavily invested in companies that can raise prices want inflation partly because inflation causes the value of the money they pay employees to drop.
Vista is more compatible with Windows 95 apps than with Windows XP applications.
Registry reflections, file system reflections, DLL reflections/manifests (and other manifestations) are just a tip of the ice-berg. Instead of locking down an administrative account and using a user to run things that then sudo (or whatever) to Admin to install, Windows' admin doesn't have admin rights - you have to jumps hoops though the UAC (or whatever it is called).
If you ever want to run Custom Actions in an MSI installer that was created with Visual Studio 2005, sorry, you are *out of luck*. The new flags to allow admin custom actions are not supported by VS2005 even with Vista update for it. You have to dick around the MSI files with Orca.
And let's not forget the last 3 days of me running around the forums trying to figure out why a MS supplied runtime does not install with their own installer on Vista. Turns out some "security" update or SDK update or whatever, broke the installers...
Oh, but the Windows 95 apps run fine. The designed for XP or 2000, with people running the apps as normal users in mind type of applications, are the ones that are fscked up.
The hellish experience of Vista is even worse for developers (Visual Studio was not even recommended to be run on Vista by Microsoft until earlier this year with SP1 and that SP1 broke the compiler as we see with Qt4).
Or the ability to update every single program installed on your machine with a few clicks?
What other industry is there that abuses their customers like this? I feel like I'm being accused of criminal activity from the first second I install a MS product now. Prisons?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
So what is your solution? If you accept that Windows is the most used OS in the world, equating to 100's of millions of installations and that Microsoft loses a lot of revenue due to software piracy, you would expect that they would want to do something to curb what is a big problem. You only have to look at the Asian market in particular, where piracy is so rife that even government agencies are far from compliance. Do you shrug your shoulders and hope they'll cough up one day? Do you write it off and just be thankful that they want to use your product/s? Or do you actually do something about it because it has a real effect on the bottom line?
Clearly, no protection is ever foolproof and the nature of anti-piracy makes everyone a suspect first, a customer second. But that doesn't stop the need to do something to curb the problem. Passports can be forged; driver's licenses can be forged; money can be forged. Yet this hasn't stopped governments from issuing them.
I don't know anyone who hasn't used Winzip at some point but I know of zero non-corporate customers have actually bothered to pay for it I dread to think how much money Winzip has lost over the years. Even they are now doing something about it in their later versions.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder, if Apple had become the most dominant force on the desktop, would they be experiencing the same piracy problem? If so, how they would be controlling piracy - would they be any kinder to genuine customers? I rather suspect that in the end, business is business.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The "Documents and Settings" folder exists on Vista - sort of, you just don't see it in the root of the drive, but it's there. Try typing it in the address bar. Microsoft appears to have setup a "symlink" of sorts on windows so it points to the "Users" directory.
With Ubuntu releasing every 6 months and Windows releasing every 7 years, I am guessing that Ubuntu will catch and overtake Microsoft before the next release of Windows. After all, that's another 12 versions if you count Feisty Fawn and Gutsy Gibbon as the first 2. Ubuntu will be on Supreme Serpent or something. By then, clearly it will have surpassed Windows. How could it not? (Gutsy is amazingly close right now.)
It's just a matter of time before companies start asking their custom software providers for Linux versions. Once that happens (and the companies comply) it's all over for Microsoft, because companies will love to save millions on OS licenses. And with all Windows development going to .NET and with the maturity of Mono, switching will become very easy for the custom software provider. Heck, I have fairly advanced Windows apps that compile on Mono with less than 10 changes right now. It takes about 30 minutes tops for many well-behaved apps.
Microsoft has already lost in my opinion (unless they release a non-crippled successor to Vista within a year or two), it's only a matter of time.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
A complete solution is almost at hand. Get a Mac with Leopard, and go into "enhanced functionality mode" permanently, without the OS manufacturer screwing with your life.
Except for Apple's iTunes store, of course, which for the most part is as DRM-infested as Vista is.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
and concentrate on saving its ass in the mobile phone market before Linux and OSX eats it's lunch there to.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
... to find an activation crack on the web. ;)
*ducks*
Parallels (on the Mac) will allow you to run a bootcamp partition as a virtual machine. This is handy when you don't want to reboot to hit Vista. Sadly, Vista sees this as s totally different machine and requests reactivation.
From XP??? I changed hardware before only to find that I had to reactivate Winblows, only to find it wouldn't.
Oh, well.
Seems like the guy arguing that it's really no hassle at all a week or two ago wasn't really right.
Surprise, surprise.
Face it, people: when software manufacturers do this kind of thing, the only reasonable option is to pirate their software (if you really have to use it). Because you not only pay premium money otherwise, but have to keep on proving you'd paid.
Just because you paid, you are a suspect for "stealing".
I know inertia is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, but this model is ridiculous... it has to break sometime.
(Then again, I say that about religion as well, and yet...)
Ignore this signature. By order.
Sounds like the XP install CD doesn't have the right HD controller drivers. I run into the problem all the time. Either provide a 3rd party driver floppy when it prompts you to, or slipstream the drivers into a custom xp CD.
I'm really sad to say it but most non-computer geeks I know don't want Vista but they also don't know they can still get a computer without it. Even after I tell them, they still can't figure it out on Dell's website. Many of them end up a circuit city buy crappy machines with vista. The machine they bought was 4 times faster than his old machine and still runs slower.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
You may require a driver for the drive controller, some laptops have SATA drives these days.
Hit F6 when it asks you if you need a third party RAID or SCSI driver. You'll need to put the driver on a floppy and hope it supports USB floppy drives in "text mode".
Of course if you can't find the driver, you're screwed.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
HTH.
Here's something pretty damned amazing I ran into on a vista machine.
I was working with a folder inside a user's folder. The folder contained directories and code retrieved from an svn repository.
Anyways, here's a long story short:
1. Attempt to move folder from one location inside user's Documents folder to another clean location inside the same Documents folder. Verify that user has ownership of all files in the security tab.
2. Vista immediately pops up the "You are trying to change the machine" dialog.
3. Black screen of "Allow or Deny" pops up, click Allow
4. Get new window of "Permission Denied, you need Administrative rights". Click "yes" I want to acquire administrative rights.
5. Then, as Administrator, the move operation fails again with an obscure "Permission Denied" error window.
6. WTF, I start swearing. I'M RUNNING AS ADMINISTRATOR AND I AM GOD YOU FUCKING STUPID OS. MOVE THE GODDAMNED DIRECTORY.
7. Give up, and reboot machine. Watch as the move as operation now works and cry at how much longer you have to work with Vista.
Note, this was never a "file in use error" always a permissions error.
If your company is thinking about a move to Vista, fight, scratch, plead, threaten, and bribe your way into at the very least postponing the move for at least two years. You will thank me.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Warning! Warning! You have three days to activate Vista or it will be in reduced functionality mode.
WTF? The video card was the first hardware change in six months. And WTF is with the three day warning when I can run Vista as a non-registered user for weeks??
*Fine* I click on the activation icon and get told my license is already in use so I have to do the telephone activation.
I hate the telephone activation. First you have to phone them up and type in the 46 number sequence (WTF, am I arming an ICBM here?) then they always tell you that you'll have to talk to a representative who asks you for the 46 number sequence again since the last machine just went and chucked out the one you just spent ten minutes reading into the phone. Then you have to type in a different 46 digit ICBM arming code to use the OS you already paid money for. The call cost $5 on my friend's pay-as-you-go cell phone.
Hey, Microsoft! I paid $300 for your POS OS. If I had pirated it I would have none of this bullcrap but no, I had to be an honest customer and this is my reward. Do you wonder people hate you?
And this is caused by driver updating yet. The one thing a Vista user has no choice but to do is update all multimedia drivers every few weeks as new releases come out to fix the previous releases problems with Vista.
Amazing business model there, Lou. You guys think of this by yourselves, did you?
So what is your solution? If you accept that Windows is the most used OS in the world, equating to 100's of millions of installations and that Microsoft loses a lot of revenue due to software piracy, you would expect that they would want to do something to curb what is a big problem.
A big problem? If only all businesses had Microsoft's problems:
Revenue In Millions:
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Just like to know who pays the developers for all the extra work Vista causes?
Assumably, the cost ultimately goes back to the consumer somehow.
I use Win2K and Office 97. I was at my bank this morning (a big multi-state operation), I noticed they still used W2K. WFM and my bank too.
Remember the old computer industry maxim: "Pioneers get arrows in their backs; Settlers reap the harvests."
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
You're absolutely right, and obviously I don't have the solution to the problem. I don't know what that solution will look like. But I think we can start with what's not working -- take the solutions that the software and music industries have tried, and throw them out the window.
I imagine the Steam model has worked pretty well, but the concept of a computer "phoning home" every time you want to play Half-Life is asinine. Can you imagine how bad it would be if you had to phone home just to use your operating system? That might be the solution down the road if the software publishers can get away with it, though.
Copy protection isn't working -- that much seems clear to me. A better question might be, is piracy really a problem? Microsoft and Adobe are still raking in cash hand over fist despite the nearly ubiquitous piracy of their software. You're right, though: it'd likely be no different if it were Apple or GoogleOS or anyone else.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
And not one of them are curbing piracy at all.
All they're doing is inconveniencing the legit user while cracked programs continue to work even better than the official release. Perhaps that's a sign?
James Bannan (the author of the referenced article) is normally quite pro-Microsoft in his pieces in APC Magazine. That he is coming out in this article with this level of criticism makes me feel that he has become quite frustrated by at least one of: (1) the Vista/XP activation issue, (2) the activation process, (3) the Microsoft response. That's quite apart from the process of 'fixing' his system that he has described. Also, being a prominent and normally pro-M$ writer has probably been of great assistance; but, what of the 'normal' M$ user? James Bannan now has an insight!
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
You mean, you actually switched out the video card and did NOT reinstall Windows? While you should be able to do this, in XP it was so cumbersome and lead to so many little bugs here and there that it was just easier to reinstall the OS or do a repair install. I imagine the same thing is true with Vista. I was dual booting XP and Vista, then upgraded Video Card, motherboard, processor, and memory. So many driver issues, that instead of trying to fix everything, I just did a repair install. Windows XP and Vista both activated just fine. Of course, your license agreement may vary, affecting your ability to activate online. If so, just call the 800 number, let Microsoft know you upgraded your software and need reactivation, and they will give you an activation code over the phone.
I mean, OMG, you have to reinstall and reactivate after doing a major hardware change to your computer? This is nothing new. You are in reduced functionaliy mode for half an hour? I am actually surprised that you were able to run Windows for that long without it bluescreening on you after the upgrade because of some driver conflict.
This has been an issue since Windows '95. People have dealt with this for 12 years. You upgrade your hardware, you reinstall your Microsoft OS or spend hours or days trying to "fix" issues that may arise. Get over it, reinstall and reactivate.
About two weeks ago I installed a NIC driver update off of windows update. Upon reboot I had to reactivate my install.
I can understand that too many actual hardware changes would pop up an activation request. But updating the driver is equivalent to new hardware? Come on, that's B.S. Surely Windows can check if hardware has changed based on PCI vendor/device IDs and perhaps serial numbers such as Mac addresses, but does it need the particular device driver to do that? How would a driver version change those hardware IDs? I'd assume that Windows defines a standard way to present that information if it does ask the driver to retrieve it, which should not change from one driver revision to the next. I give a big thumbs down to driver version being part of the "system ID" for activation checks. Sorry, but that's pretty stupid.
Who needs Vista for this? They already had this feature rolled out in Windows XP. I was able to unexpectedly deactivate a valid XP install by updating my ATI drivers. I bet it's a little slicker in Vista, but I'm a bit old school. All kidding aside, the real bitch was I could not even re-activate it over the phone! I had an Athlon 64 computer and I took advantage of the Windows XP x64 upgrade special they offered a while ago. I had the x64 media and key, but was sitting on the actual install until some driver issues were taken care of. MS support insisted my XP Pro 32-bit key was an x64 one. After trying to explain my situation and the upgrade path to support for over an hour, I gave up. It forced an upgrade to a product that wasn't quite ready for daily use. My bad for giving them my money. I know. I take full responsibility.
Leopard should run fine on lots of older macs, including an old G5 desktop I've had for years, and I'll also fudge a little and load it on a 667MHz G4 laptop I have (bypassing the system requirements a bit) that's about seven years old now. I have no plans to buy any new macs for a while because they go for years and years...
How many seven year old laptops can run Vista again? How many TWO year old laptops can realistically run Vista?
I guess people with no previous Mac experience keep forgetting that each successive OS X release has made old hardware feel faster... and reports seem to say Leopard at least stays even with Tiger in performance on the same hardware (with some things being faster from optimization).
Funny that a Vista user would come in and tape a second target to their rear. Hardware requirements indeed!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Much more original than the lame iSparta joke I keep seeing over and over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I wholeheartedly agree. The Registry was a huge mistake. Also, Programs should never share files or put files in the Windows System folder. Just run with the files in your own directory and don't mess with the rest of the system!
On my vista x64 box, I changed from the nForce4 drivers that came with vista to the ones from nVidia. That alone, with no hardware changes, forced a re-validation. I had to sit on hold with someone from India until they finally issued me a new key. Lots of fun.
"wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that all government machines using vista suddenly shut down when china invades."
US military and civilian government effectiveness would skyrocket if the Giant Email Pump were turned off. It's amazing the useful stuff people find to do when the network goes down.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Absolutely. When I have 40 different processes running I'd much rather each had their own statically linked versions of all the necessary libraries rather than using DLLs, I'll just upgrade my machine to 16Gb of RAM.
Where I work, we've switched all our computers to Macs, even our Solidworks user use it on Mac Pros with Windows installed under Bootcamp. I have asked, and I'm not the only one, when Thompson/Solidworks is planning on releasing a Mac version. The rep said they aren't right now, but they are looking at officially recognizing Parallels with its 3D acceleration. However, the more people that ask, the bigger the chances are that they will make a Mac version. There's a whole load of design and engineering agencies that would love to drop Windows but can't because of the toolchain. Do your bit: ask!
I've updated countless drivers for graphics cards and other devices on Vista. Not once have I had any issue. I wonder if this is caused by certain graphics cards. Or prehaps certain 3rd party drivers not provided directly from Nvidia or ATI? I'm using a Nvidia 8800 GTS 640mb and have only used fully released drivers (no beta drivers). Could it possibly be the Vista flavor? IE: premium, ultimate etc.
~Vexed and loving it!
NT was out before 98. It was also focused differently.
3.5 shipped in 94 for crying uot.oud.
MS has enough problems. There is no need to make some up.
Win 2000 was the best OS they have released to date.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually from his little report this flags up an issue; one of quality assurance on driver software.
In order to get around spurious reactivation, drivers should report identity data the same way Microsoft's do - one would have thought this was part of the WHQL testing regime but apparently not.
But, if the hardware change reporting is meant to trigger it, then hardware should not be seen to change - by updating the Intel drivers, why should it change the unique hardware reporting? If it is pushing out PCI chipset IDs, low-level configuration of your drives etc. in a pretty package to the Activation system for checking, then why would something like a driver update like that make such a big deal?
I remember updating the firmware on my DVD burners a couple of times (I did have 3 DVD burners..) and it causing XP to want to reactivate the moment I plugged my graphics card in back from the repair shop. The nice girl on the phone said it was basically because I had installed too many drives; yeah, and Windows spent 10 minutes redetecting them on boot, too. But updating the drive firmware and changing the VERSION NUMBER shouldn't be an activation trigger. Some manufacturers put the version number of the drive in the "model" field and not the "version" field, which would do that, but not these guys.. it is simply overzealous checking.
But we are not talking about updating something low level in the drives or connected peripherals, just the Intel driver for RAID.. so what changed here?
So, is this a "Activation Sucks!!" issue or a "Windows Hardware Quality Labs are a bunch of fucking fakers!?" issue?
I call the latter. Requiring product activation is something you have to do these days with software. Oh well, live with it. If it's not Windows itself, it's Adobe CS3 or CorelDraw or whatever else. Microsoft are not the only culprit here on activation problems, and the problems are not down to the activation concept, but some weird driver identifier reporting system. If Microsoft are so big on driver signing and code quality, they should really be fixing this as a principle of being able to run a signed, managed system with no bluescreening or weird-behaving drivers - not necessarily on the principle of "well having users call a 1-800 number and spend 2 minutes typing in a number 3 times during product lifetime" which is pretty moot at the end of the day.
Is it a hybrid hard drive -- one with both flash and spinny spinny disk? Our helpdesk guy had to put XP on a pretty new XPS, and it was a GIANT PITFA because XP could not understand the HDD.
He did eventually overcome the problem, though. You should totally ask him about it.
Do you even know how many of your 40 processes even use the same files? Probably none of them.
You may not feel right at home, but you do have Terminal, and it's nice to be able to run X, and lots of Unix-y stuff can be found in MacPorts, too.
Windows can be run in a VM, or with Boot Camp, natively. I've only had to reboot into Windows once in the past year, to run a proprietary firmware update application for a SanDisk MP3 player.
If you do decide to buy, shop around. Depending on which state you live in, that educational discount may not be worth it, compared to buying from Amazon... (in my case it wasn't--had no use for a Nano, and buying from Amazon meant no sales tax, plus a rebate)
I had this issue with activating XP Home for my grandfather. What happened is I built him a new machine using XP home that he bought used and activated on his old machine. It activated just fine when I installed it on his new rig but then after about an hour I had to call M$ support. A machine took care of me and I got my long activation code. Finally 10 mins I was deactivated again. This time when I called I had to wait a while and talked to a Indian customer rep and had to explain to her that the hardware was showing up different because this was a new machine built. So she issued me a new activation code. No further problems after that with activation. Personally I was not to happy dealing with this issue. I can't imagine my grandfather dealing with them. Luckily he has me to help him out.
I tend to think that you could make a case that activation has in fact aided the growth of MS's bottom line with those numbers.
Of course they have continued to add new products and services.
What are you even replying to? You people are a bunch of drones! Are you an FSF-enthusiasm perl script?
At least running in 768 MB means you will have lots of time to see the error messages scroll by. :-)
...laura
This happened to me several times with XP. Usually it was after swapping a video card or motherboard. Then I would have to call MS and after 15 minutes on hold, read off a shiteload of numbers and then key in a shiteload of numbers to reactivate. This only encouraged me to make the switch to Linux as primary OS.
Ask yourself: why is Microsoft a monopoly? Yes, they've done all kinds of evil stuff to maintain their stranglehold on the marketplace, but how did they get it in the first place? Because of the technological lockin they've had since the IBM PC came out in 1981. Developers have to code applications against Microsoft APIs because that's where the users are. Users have to buy systems that run Microsoft OSs because that's where the applications are.
But a lot of factors are beginning to interfere with this vicious cycle. Nowadays a lot of applications are web-based, and you don't need Windows to run a web browser. Users are rebelling against the usability and cost of ownership issues. Macs can now run most Windows apps; yes, they need Windows in a VM to do it, but once the Mac platform grabs enough market share (8% and climbing rapidly) developers who aren't rabid Mac fanchildren are going to start considering it again.
And finally, there's the big one: retailers are pissed at Microsoft. Over and over, Microsoft has delivered updated OSs late, and screwed them up when they finally got them out the door. This hurts the retailer's ability to sell all those shiny new computers they just ordered. So they're going to more seriously consider Microsoft alternatives. That means that products that previously couldn't find a sales channel — web appliances, cheap computers running Linux — now actually have a chance.
Good lord, I'm actually feeling optimistic!
lol, yeah, just a few posts ;-)
As a child poster pointed out - Microsofts revenue continues to accelerate. Perhaps this attributed to activation, perhaps not it would require unfettered access to MS and all that goes on to determine if this were the case. Or perhaps it is becuase MS's profit margin continues to increase with every copy of XP sold. I wonder why they are so quick to EOL it lol.
Another poster pointed out winzip - which i think is a prefect example. I've used it for years but there was no compelling incentive to get a serial for it. i did however buy a copy a few years ago "just because". if there were activation or expiry i would have bought it long ago because i use it all the time.
Sure, things get cracked. In many ways it's the handgun argument. Ban guns, but the criminals will still have them because well, they are criminals. Then what would the poor defenseless masses do?
I'm pretty sure though that activation has changed the way people aquire software. Over time though, we all end up accumulating serials. then we all get upgrades at reduced prices. very few actually pay for a brand new off the shelf copy of the OS. Windows also does not really "cost" as much as it does on the shelf.
"pirates" - i think that this requires a broader look at who these people are. from an economic standpoint these are people whose time is worth the risk and effort of downloading questionable copies of vista or xp or office and following questionable steps to recieve free software. have you actually tried to pirate this stuff? i don't think it is as easy as you think it is. i rely on the computer much more than most for their day to day activities so i don't mind paying for it.
i don't see any reward in getting some spyware ridden cd image on some site that i just spent ten hours looking for or some infected zip file with one dll that i need to replace.
there is also the question: if the pirates actually had to pay would they use it? that is to say how many of the people pirating are not really pirates in the sense that MS would not receive revenue from the because the cost was simply too high. this is actually much more relevent to the closely related DRM discussions; how much of the supposed "lost" revenue is really "made up". sure you can count downloaded songs and say they are worth X. the reality is though that the people downloading them have to be able to afford them before they are worth X. e.g. a 12 year old with a thousand songs probably does not have the economic capacity to purchase all of that music. so if they actually had to pay for it - they would only own 100 songs.
i touched on this earlier but i will reiterate; i think that you trivialize the process of finding, installing and cracking vista and, xp or any other software. then you must also maintain that software in it's cracked state. it's not easy and it's not trivial. you run the constant risk of the carpet being pulled out from under you. based on the the first vista crack that i found a "time reset activation" crack, i can see how wga could easily be modified to determine how long activation has been pending, and act accordingly. MS is probably tracking that already. its just a matter of time before they decide to do something about it.
I think the bottom line is activation is not as bad and painful as it's made out to be. It's easy if you actually bought the software. It's a pain if you did not. In a few cases people have issues, i found myself in that position a few weeks ago and it really wasn't an issue. It's not like MSFT wants to know exactly why you are re-actviating. It's actually easier than it used to be in XP - I guess the guy that wrote the article has forgotten about that.
I'd say activation and WGA work pretty well. But that's just me ;)
Steam is a questionable solution. They are "just games" and it keeps me from having to put a CD in the drive which is really the only benefit. I was a little miffed now that they want to install a windows service to support the crap. If it were anything mission critical i'd cry donkey balls on it.
we've had about 25 years to figure this out. and i've not seen anything easier than windows activation and wga in a while. it's largely unobtrusive. i have had other products that need activation and they were far more obtrusive, especially when something went wrong.
i think music/video drm is another issue altogether, and i think that there is really no reason for drm to exisit.
glibc - almost all of them
libpthread - yup, all of them
libgnome - all the gnome apps
libsocket - anything that uses sockets (in otherwords, almost everything)
should I go on?
OK, I know that's an example from my Linux box, but the same applies to Windows. If your principle of "programs should never share files" were put into practice, all of the code that lets a program draw a window, load and save to disk, access the networking stack etc. etc. would be repeated again and again for every single process. Not every single application (i.e. Word, Notepad etc.) but every service running in the background too.
The use of shared libraries has been a feature of multi-tasking operating systems for decades, and with good reason: modern OSs start with dozens, if not hundreds, of processes even before you've launched an application to do anything, and statically linking all of these would be a huge waste of resources. DLL-hell is an unfortunate side-effect of this, but in a properly package-managed system (hint: most Linuxes) this can be avoided. The reason why Windows apps write to the Windows sytem folder is that they have newer versions of DLLs (e.g. Visual Basic runtime) that are needed for that app to run, but that should be backwards-compatible with the other installed apps that may already be using those files.
Has anyone ever seen Mark Shuttleworth and Bill Gates in the room at the same time.
I swear, one of these days he'll just grab his neck and pull off a rubber face mask, laughing maniacally. I can only assume their will be a white persian cat involved as well.
It's the only explanation. Microsoft can't possibly be this stupid.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Think about that word you justed used--product. I bought their PRODUCT--I did NOT sign a contract with them. And no, EULAs don't count because I didn't get a chance to agree to the terms *before* I bought the product. So tell me, why do you think that a company has the right to tell you how to use their product? If I sell you a car, I don't have the right to demand that you use Shell gas.
No I understand that the things the OS is in charge of like window creation, the color of the window and how it looks, tcp stack etc. needs to be shared. I'm refering to all the stupid proprietary DLLs that vendors throw in the system directory.
...we'll have to write this feature into Ubuntu. Can't be accused of not supporting our fair share of the world's tech service, can we? (j/k)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Ahhh, well you were talking about files in common - of which there are many hundreds - when in fact you meant proprietary DLLs (of which there are but a few). I would hope that sensible application developers would statically link libraries that are only needed by one app. I guess they make them shared libraries so that if you have multiple apps from the same vendor they can all share the same library.
:) 'nuff said
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Right, because...
Not so...
The best way of dealing with this (if the laptop BIOS supports it) is to set the SATA controller to compatability mode (emulates IDE on SATA). If you DON'T do this, you'll probably end up with the Lenovo T60 problem (blue screens on first boot after a fresh install). BIOS upgrades help a bit, but can brick the notebook if you've already had problems with it.
This happened to me, just about 5 minutes after I read the article I finished installing my Logitech camera drivers. I made no other changes today, though I did update windows defender definitions. This is all on my 'testing out vista host' so it's not a big loss or anything.. but I was using a fully licensed MSDN copy of vista, and did NOTHING but update the drivers. Lo and behold, along comes a popup bubble at the bottom of the screen saying something like (don't remember the exact wording) Windows Failed to Activate hostname not found. or something very similar. First of all, I shouldn't have to activate... second, what host? I shit you all not, this really happened to me, just about 5 minutes after I read this and thought 'boy I hope that doesn't happen to me...' How's that for irony?
Speak for yourself.
Yeah, definitely. Crap like this encourages piracy. How easy is it to download a corporate SP1 cd that you can slipstream to SP2 and never have to worry about activation? Very.
Which is why anyone with any sense tests a pirate version in a VM or other locked-down environment first.*
What's that you say? Most people don't? Well, that explains the zombie counts...
* Which is the only way I *ever*, EVER let customer's machines on my internal web. Not like this is a new technique, hasbeard. Anything the least bit suspect should be locked away from the web until it can be determined it's safe.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It only works if you install Vista backwards. In other word's, uninstall it.
The latest in a long list of blunders by Microsoft.
Don't they understand that if they keep making Vista so unreliable, frustrating or hard to use with all the piracy protections, OS lockdowns, DRM and stuff, people might just not want to use Vista?
I guess they will only get it when even the pirates refuse to pirate Vista, "Because nobody wants it".
I'm running Mandriva 2008 Linux on a Dell box that came preloaded with Ubuntu. I run Windows XP under VirtualBox for a few highly specialized programs where there are not Linux equivalents. This works well for me. I have invested time learning how my system works 'under the hood.' I think this has been time well spent. The biggest challenge I faced was figuring out how to apply Dell BIOS updates. Solved it - but the details are beyond the scope of this post. The most important factor for success was a desire to learn, accompanied by a willingness to try things and to ask proper questions. This page by Eric Raymond was helpful...
I'm waiting to see the advertising on the next version of windows. I'll use your product name.
Update now to Windows Zenith Fuzzy Edition. Comes with free fluffy **kitten
**(ultra fine print) live kitten not guaranteed. State of decomposition depends on the time of packaging.
Change your preferences to see everything. Thats how I saw you.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
knowing MSFT stock is in the toilet at $30 a share ------ and Apple stock is soaring at over a $100 a share --- today hitting $186
:-)
I just know that has to gall Monkey Boy and the Beast Master !!!!
Long Live Linux and OS X
Go ahead and mod me flamebait or off topic
Its not the years, its the mileage
Part of suitability for mission critical is having a decent worst case scenerio. With a REAL OS, if worse comes to worst, I can put the HD in another machine and boot it up with minimal trouble. When you are in a situation where that is your best option, the last thing you need to do is play mother may I with tech support somewhere.
Put another way, the OS's job is to do whatever root tells it to do if at all possible. Windows has a different master. It will obey MS to the end, and then root (administrator) only if not in conflict with orders from Redmond. If said orders keep you down, too bad.
Sadly, with the DRM heaped in, OSes from Redmond are becoming more rather than less likely to outright refuse to carry out instructions.
with my copy. They can do whatever they want with the codebase.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Why don't people tell Microsoft that this is unacceptable? For changing something as simple as a video card you have to call Microsoft? What a PIA. Why do we put up with it? Where is the Government? If Toyota decided that we have to call them to get permission to continue to drive the car if we change a tire, change the oil, etc., what crap. Why should this be any different? If microsoft wants to deal in the real world and use things like patents, they should have to play by the same rules. In the automotive world you could say simply by another make of car. By their own admission they control over 90% of the desktops so they are a monopoly. Treat them like one. Stick it to them.
I believe the China part, I duno about MS though.
A lot of Asian governments seem to be wary of depending on the US based software giant. They had to bargain to get Chinese to use MS at one point, selling windows at cheaper prices or something to convince China to put up with anti-piracy efforts or blahblahblah. I can't remember exactly what the details were and I can't find a link. oh well. maybe ignore that part since I can't verify what I'm saying. There was something interesting that happened though.
Anyways. My 5 RMB (certainly not dollars) is on China + Asian Linux
http://www.news.com/Asian-Linux-gaining-momentum/2100-1011_3-5278304.html
"Following an agreement inked last year, government officials from South Korea, China and Japan met in Beijing in April to discuss how they can create an open-source alternative to Microsoft Windows, honing in on issues such as the setting of standards, areas of joint technical development and work force exchange."
And now oracle is supporting it. I don't know much about it, but.
China is a country that, as a country, can make a decision and execute it. To read here, you memorize 5,000+ characters. When the Chinese government wants it to be a little easier, they change the character set. What happens? Everyone uses the new characters. I mean, radicals change so it's not *that* hard, but in the US, we can't even change to the metric system. They can build a wall *that* long. They can censor the INTERNET across an entire country. they can....
If China commits itself to using a better operating system, I really believe they could home-grow an OS from scratch better than Winblows or OSX relatively quickly. Not that I think that's saying much.
On a daily basis, I curse Adobe only a little less often than I curse Microsoft.
I made a network PDF printer here that drops your PDF into an open share folder. That works fine for about half of our group. The other half insist that they need to be able to edit PDFs. We have v.7 licenses, so I have to install Acrobat 7.0, then apply FOUR UPDATES THAT EACH REQUIRE A RESTART to get to 7.0.9. It takes a freakin' hour to install, because Adobe won't release a rolled-up installer. Obviously, Adobe wants v.7 to be a pain in the ass to use so I'll buy v.8. But I refuse, because we get nothing out of it. It's an upgrade in name only. Why the hell should we have to pay again for the same functionality?
When staff here budget for a new PC, they don't think about having to buy a new Acrobat license. Make sure you add that in when working up the cost of "upgrading" to Vista, as if you need any more reason to avoid it.
Adobe has always produced bloated, resource-hungry crap that is frequently the cause of instability issues. Why does it take longer to launch Photoshop CS3 on a dual-core machine than it did to open Photoshop 4.0 on a Pentium 1? Even though Adobe has three processes running at all time just in case you want to launch their bloatware?
NIC card
This invalidates anything else you have said, because you are a fucking idiot.
Uhm... yeah... Actually, there's tons of it. Most of the software used by the company I work for fails to install or fails to run under Vista. Heck, even Microsoft's own products aren't compatible with Vista: Office, Zune... The list goes on. Want more? Google is your friend. Try a query for "not compatible with Windows Vista" or "Vista incompatible".
Oh, and lest you think I'm some Microsoft-bashing fanboi - I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional, and I work for a Windows-only software company. We don't support Vista, yet, either.
--
Nuf Sed.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
... you forgot to mention that with web-based apps, this really could actually be the desired mode of operation. Work for 30 minutes, take a break while your machine reboots... come to think of it, why bother with activation in the first place?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
What is the PIN number for your ATM machine? I want some cash to buy a NIC card.
"But this one goes to 11!"